LOA!!! Day 48

Our agency called this afternoon to tell us that our Letter of Acceptance arrived from the Chinese government!  I was hoping it would arrive before the end of the year, though it could have taken well into January.  Its arrival now means that we're in a good position to be able to travel in March to bring Abbie home!!

Adam and I toasted the good news with a bottle of bubbly from IKEA.  It's their sparkling lingonberry apple juice, and it was a good way to celebrate! 

What's next?  We file our I-800 form with US immigration for them to approve our match with Abbie.  This approval usually takes 3 weeks.  I'd love to have it by the end of the year, but with the holidays, it will likely be sometime in early January.  Immigration then lets the US Embassy in Guangzhou, China know that Abbie's immigration application is approved, and the Embassy then issues an Article 5 letter (basically saying that everything has been met on the US side of things for the adoption and immigration to proceed), which is then sent to the Chinese government.  The final step is Travel Approval (TA) from the Chinese government - we will travel a couple of weeks after receiving it.  All of these steps are outlined on the Timeline tab of the blog.